


Mundane Abnormality

by FanofBttf



Series: Future Phineas and Ferb [1]
Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: F/M, Humor, Implied/Referenced Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 12:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3649605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanofBttf/pseuds/FanofBttf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A minor incident during the night gives both Candace and Isabella the chance to reflect what life with the unconventional people they live with is really like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mundane Abnormality

**Author's Note:**

> All right, so this is another fluffy piece (probably worse than the other one in this series) about Amanda being comforted during a storm, and that being the catalyst for a discussion about how unusual life with Phineas and Ferb must be. We always see them as kids, but eventually our two favorite inventors are going to grow up and get settled into adulthood, and when they do they will carry their unique personality quirks with them. And the kind of friction - or perhaps harmony - that would result in would be worthy of a book, even if here it is just a short story, describing how those living with our heroes must experience life. 
> 
> That, or it's just a crappy writing exercise about a silly, cliché theme that either never got properly on its way or never was properly anything at all. Your pick, really. 
> 
> Please read and review!

It was like a fire alarm.  
The sound was reaching her ears even as she was trying so hard to avoid it, and even pulling the blanket up over her head and rolling over to the side so at least one ear was pressed against the pillow didn’t help any.  
_Go back to sleep go back to sleep go back to sleep._  
Crud. She was only getting _more_ awake.  
After making no effort to stifle a yawn, she rolled over and looked at the time on the actual alarm, the one on her nightstand. 3:14 AM. She still had at least four or five hours of sleep to go. But if this continued, she’d be lucky to catch four or five minutes.  
She rolled over to the other side, pulling herself up from the bed a little just so she could whisper into his ear. “Phineas?”  
No reaction.  
“Phineas, get up. It’s your turn.”  
Nothing.  
“Seriously, Phin. There’s no way you can sleep through this, so don’t try to fool me. You know I hate that, especially at three in the morning.”  
There was still no reaction. Which meant he was – as hard as it was to believe – actually sleeping through this.  
Again.  
She desperately stared at him, hoping to be able to avoid having to get up. It really was his turn, just like it had been his turn for so many times already but he just kept sleeping through his shifts. She knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose – no matter how much energy he seemed to have during the day, after fifteen hours of work he was simply spent at night – but it still irked. She tried to give him a nudge in the side, then another, until it came to the point when she was practically shaking him but he still gave little to no reaction.  
Of course there were alternatives. She could simply dunk a bucket of water into his face, as she would have loved to do when they were still young, but the years had… softened her, she supposed. It somehow didn’t feel right to do that to him. Yet. If he did this again next time, she might change her mind.  
Then she suddenly noticed that while she’d been trying to awaken Phineas, the wailing had stopped. She carefully listened in disbelief. Could it really be over already? Without her needing to intervene? Oh, how she longed for that – she _needed_ a good night’s sleep, and tomorrow was going to be another busy day…  
And then the thunder struck, and sure enough, the crying started again.  
Well, there was no point to lingering any longer now. With a sigh, Candace Gertrude Flynn pulled herself out of the bed, casting an envious glance at her still sleeping brother before sulking down the stairs. She couldn’t really blame her daughter for crying, not in the middle of a thunderstorm. Amanda had been terrified of thunder ever since she was born, and she was only… what, seventeen months old now? It was perfectly understandable. She’d suffered from the same thing when she was Amanda’s age.  
But where she had simply cuddled up to Ducky Momo under the blankets and wished for the storm to go away, Amanda seemed determined to ensure that if she had to suffer, so did the rest of the neighborhood.  
The girl was deep under the covers anyway, but peeked up when she heard the door open. “Mommy?”  
Candace nodded, then realized how stupid that was with all the lights turned off. “Yes it’s me, honey” she said instead, putting all the kindness she could muster into her voice. “What’s wrong?”  
A soft “storm” told her enough. She gently took Amanda into her arms and rocked her back and forth. Amanda curiously looked up to her, but seemed to quiet down from this. Good, maybe she could get her to sleep again and then she too could catch a few hours…  
KAPOW!  
“Weeh!”  
When was she going to learn not to think out of turn?  
As Amanda continued to cry, Candace simply continued to rock her daughter back and forth while carrying her over to the living room and sitting down on the couch. It didn’t seem to help, as Amanda just went on crying. She looked around the room searching for the _other_ male in the household. Maybe he could help them out…  
But no. As she looked over to his pouch, she noticed that their pet and resident secret agent, too, was sound asleep. Before she could wonder how this was humanly - or platypusly - possible, she noticed the pads in his ears.  
Of course Perry had prepared himself for this. And since – as he’d obviously counted upon – she wasn’t quite prepared to pull them out (it would be a little embarrassing to openly admit that she needed the help of her pet to comfort Amanda, after all, even if said pet was a retired member of OWCA) and she’d never perfected their non-verbal communication thing anyway there was nothing she could do except keep rocking Mandy back and forth and hope that she’d eventually settle down.  
Until the vidphone rang.  
The sound startled them both, enough so that Amanda actually stopped crying for a moment – even if Candace knew she would promptly resume the activity when the next bolt of thunder struck. For the moment, though, she was more surprised at who on earth would call her at this hour of the night. “Come in” she said tentatively.  
The videophone Phineas and Ferb had installed on their wall was truly amazing, as it barely took a second before Isabella’s face appeared on a screen that seemed to have come straight out of a cinema. She looked just as tired as Candace felt, but nevertheless mustered a small smile. “Hey Candace” she said. “Is it that time again?”  
Candace blushed fiercely. “You guys can _hear_ that?” This was bad. This was very, very bad.  
Isabella smirked. “You bet. Ferb and I both woke up from it.” Behind her, Candace could see her stepbrother moving around with a glass of milk. After hearing his name mentioned, he stopped and gave her a wave. Isabella took a sip from her own glass and turned back to Candace. “Is Amanda still scared of the thunder?”  
Candace shrugged. “It scared me at that age too – well beyond, even – but I don’t think I ever made this kind of racket. I’m really sorry about waking you guys up,” she added, blushing.  
Isabella snorted. “Don’t mention it. If all goes as we hope, in a year or so we’ll be paying you guys back handsomely.” Candace nodded – Isabella had mentioned wanting a large family before. “It’s not even your fault anyway – it must have been the tubes Perry’s and Pinky’s agency installed around our houses. I know there’s one in the wall of our bedroom, and I think there’s one in Amanda’s room as well, so…”  
“The sound would have reached you easily” Candace concluded. “Yeah, I guess so. Still, I’m sorry about this,” she added, speaking louder as Amanda had resumed crying. “You don’t happen to have any idea on how to get her to calm down, do you?”  
Isabella shook her head. “Ferb and I have been married for three weeks now. My knowledge of child-rearing is still little more than what I’ve picked up from you. Doesn’t Phineas have any ideas?”  
Candace sighed. “I wish” she muttered. “Believe it or not, he’s actually sleeping through this.”  
Her friend blinked. “You’re kidding.”  
“I wish.” Candace groaned. “I’ve tried everything to wake him up except dunk a bucket of water into his face, and I don’t really want to do that to him or to the blankets. Still, he needs to get off that notion that he can just keep long days and short nights without any problems. Even if he’s still a kid at heart, he physically isn’t. Not anymore.”  
“Yeah, Ferb has those tendencies as well” Isabella agreed. “They really are the worst sometimes, aren’t they?” Candace chuckled knowingly. “What about your folks? Do you think they might have any advice on Amanda?”  
“They might – Mom’s always been good with me and the boys” Candace agreed. “The problem is that if I call them, knowing Mom, she will insist on coming over, which means I’d _have_ to wake Phineas up. That, or drag him to ‘his’ bedroom, but I’m not really looking forward to that. And I can’t just bet on Mom never going upstairs – she’s become a lot less oblivious over the years.”  
Isabella nodded, understanding. One of the main problems of Phineas and Candace’s relationship with their parents was that they still hadn’t told them about the little detail that Amanda was not some random ex-boyfriend’s kid and Phineas wasn’t living with his older sister for lack of anything better. That meant they needed to keep up appearances, maintain separate rooms for the two of them and leave just enough of a façade in place that the casual observer would not notice there was anything going on. It was difficult, and in a way, ironic. All her youth she’d been trying to get her mother to open her eyes and see something. Now she was trying as hard as she could not to have her see it. Then again, irony seemed to be the story of her life in a way.  
On the other side of the line, Isabella seemed to be in thought, but then the former Fireside Girl raised her head again. “What about giving Phineas zucchini?”  
Candace frowned. “Doesn’t he hate that stuff?”  
“Exactly!” Isabella exclaimed. “He’s told me multiple times that just the scent makes him uncomfortable. If you hold a bottle under his nose…”  
Her friend chuckled. “You really are a schemer, aren’t you? Do you ever do things like that to Ferb?”  
Isabella shook her head. “No, but only because he’d get back at me in ways I couldn’t even begin to imagine. You don’t have to worry about that with Phineas. He’s far too much of an open book _and_ a nice guy to ever take vengeance like that.”  
“Oh, you’d be surprised” Candace said dryly. “But the idea sounds good. It would probably be cleaner than the bottle of water too, and I think we still have some zucchini in the house… can you hold for a while?”  
“I don’t think I’m getting much sleep until Amanda stops crying anyway” Isabella replied bemused.  
Candace blushed, putting her daughter down on the couch before heading off to the kitchen. Sure enough, she found a bottle of zucchini cocktail. After making sure the scent was clear enough, she crept up the stairs towards her bedroom (then resumed walking in a normal pace half-way because the whole _purpose_ was waking him up after all).  
“Phineas?” she said out-loud. “Are you awake yet?”  
No response. As she looked at his face, it was clear he was out like a light. All right, this meant she was going to have to go for Isabella’s drastic measures. She held the bottle in front of his nose.  
His reaction was instant. Phineas sniffed, made a face, then reached out and slapped the bottle out of harm’s way. Which worked, only he made her drop the bottle on the ground, making it splash juice over the floor and over the bottom end of her nightgown. She shrieked, but it didn’t make any difference. Phineas just rolled over to the other side and soon seemed as sound asleep as ever.  
It was almost three-thirty now, and all throughout Amanda hadn’t stopped crying. She’d just have to wait it out then. Sighing, Candace recollected herself and went down the stairs, entering the living room where Isabella was still watching her with an amused look on her face. “What happened?”  
Candace glared at her friend. “Not one word.”  
Isabella chuckled but remained quiet as Candace sat down and resumed rocking her daughter back and forth. The storm outside was lessening, so maybe – maybe – Amanda would shut up soon and she would have her chance of getting some sleep tonight after all.  
It wound up taking another ten minutes of comforting Amanda, all with Isabella offering advice through the phone, sometimes useful and sometimes incredibly pointless. But in the end, the storm decreased in strength, and so did Amanda’s wailing. Shortly before 3:45, it looked like the girl was finally back to sleep.  
Candace gently lifted her daughter off her chest and carried her off to her bedroom. As much as she was exasperated by her cries, at this point she had a hard time being mad at cute, innocent little Mandy. She’d just have to cope for a few more months. Well, unless she and Phineas were going to take their plan to have another kid sometime seriously soon.  
When she returned to the living room, though, she noticed to her surprise that Phineas was standing on the staircase. “What are you doing here?” she blurted out.  
Phineas turned towards her, yawning. “Oh, hi Candace” he muttered. “I just woke up and noticed you weren’t there. I wondered if something was wrong, so I went looking for you.”  
Candace just stared at him. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”  
Her brother shook his head. “No, I really just got up to look for you. I don’t know what happened, so…”  
“Seriously!” Candace exclaimed. “After all that time I went through trying to wake you up because Amanda was crying her heart out yet again due to the storm and I didn’t know what to do, you get up only by the time it’s just about all over?” The last part was a little more hushed – she didn’t want to wake her daughter _again_ , after all.  
Phineas looked guilty. “If it makes you feel any better, I think I have a more permanent solution for that” he said. “What do you think of an energy shield that would protect this house from the sound and the impact of lightning?”  
Candace frowned. “Sounds good. Can you do that?”  
“The word ‘impossible’ has never been in my dictionary” Phineas replied cheerfully. “Well, it was once, but I crossed it out. All I need is my machines… the power system…”  
“Wait a second, Phin” Candace said as she caught him walking away, “you’re not planning to work on that now, are you? It’s the middle of the night!”  
Phineas stopped and blinked. “Well, they do say one should strike the iron when it’s hot… not that I’d be using much iron in the project of course, due to the chance of rust development being high since the main purpose of an anti-lightning shield is to be active during storms that would often be rather humid…”  
Candace stared at him. “Phineas Andrew Flynn, you wouldn’t dare to go to work on this now! No matter what you can say about our ‘marriage’, you never gave any kind of wedding vows to science, you know.”  
Phineas smiled sheepishly, but a chuckle from their left saved him from answering. Said chuckle came from Isabella (how high was this phone bill going to be again?) who just kept staring at Phineas. “I’m sorry” she blurted out. “I just – you look so adorable like that, Phineas. Like a little boy in his pyjamas, still half-asleep… you’re only short a teddy bear.”  
As Candace cast a look at her partner and too started grinning, Phineas gave them both a tired, wary smile. “Sure, Izzy” he replied. “The only reason I’m short a teddy bear is because Candace hogs Mr. Miggins to herself all the time.”  
And just like that, Isabella’s attention shifted to her, and Candace found herself blushing. “I – I-” she stammered. “I don’t _always_ sleep with him anymore, it’s just that Amanda got Ducky Momo – who I _also_ didn’t sleep with anymore, but he was always in my room and I… I…”  
“I seem to remember it was your decision to give Ducky Momo to her” Phineas said teasingly. “It looks like you couldn’t miss him after all. You hug Mr. Miggins so hard and so often that I’m beginning to wonder whether I should get jealous.”  
Candace just glared at him. “To bed, you.”  
Phineas chuckled, but nodded and after giving Isabella a wave he slumped back up the stairs. Candace looked after him, then turned back to Isabella with an awkward look on her face. “Well…”  
“They aren’t the easiest people to live with, are they?” Isabella said grinning.  
“Don’t even get started on that” Candace replied, sitting down. “He’s easily distracted at work, just keeps having all these ideas throughout the day, and he’s one of the most oblivious people on the planet! I told you what happened last Valentine’s Day, didn’t I?”  
“In full colors” Isabella chuckled. “I still can’t believe you dropped all those hints about the bracelet you wanted and he took you to the movies instead and apparently never realized what you’d been basically begging him for. If Ferb ever did that to me...”  
Candace shrugged. “Could have been worse, I guess. He could have gotten the wrong idea from my hints and brought me something totally useless. At least the movies were fun. And he did buy me that ring.”  
“Which turned out to be copper” Isabella pointed out.  
“Phineas says he didn’t know that when he bought it, and I believe him” Candace said. “He’s just always looking for the good in people and that makes him miss even the most obvious cons. Not to mention he completely took me by surprise when he turned up with the same ring in gold a few days later. That matter transformer is really something.”  
“Definitely” Isabella said. “I wonder what the lives of women whose husbands _don’t_ dabble in science that is so advanced it’s getting close to alchemy are like?”  
Candace chuckled. “Probably really boring” she replied. “The poor girls… life with Phineas is at least never predictable, and he’s always taught me to see the bright side – no wonder, as it’s the only side he _ever_ sees. I talked to Vanessa the other day, and though Jeremy is a nice guy, I wouldn’t want to live with him all the time. I guess growing up in a household where evil inators, divorce and crime-fighting animals were daily life makes you more eager to be normal, and that’s why she likes him.”  
“No regrets about picking Phineas over him then?” Isabella asked.  
Candace glanced at the room of the girl who had caused the entire ruckus tonight. “Phineas can be annoying sometimes, but he loves me very much, and I love him. Not to mention that he gave me Amanda. I wouldn’t trade her – or her Dad – for anything.”  
“That’s good to hear” Isabella said warmly. “Do you think he’s gone back to sleep by now?”  
“Probably” Candace replied. “I really should stop this conversation now – we’ve got a long day tomorrow. Thanks for putting up with us for a while, Isabella.”  
“No problem” Isabella cheerfully replied, after which the connection was broken. Candace got up and walked back upstairs, a smile on her face.

oooooooo

Isabella smiled, terminating the connection with her best friend. It had been too long since she’d had a heart-to-heart talk like that with Candace, but it felt good to have all that off her chest. Ferb and Phineas really were unique yet eccentric – she suspected she’d go nuts if she couldn’t pour her heart out to someone who understood every now and then. It had been bad enough when they were dating, but she and Ferb were living together now.  
…right?  
She turned around, expecting to find her husband either back in bed or standing behind her, but saw nothing. As she strained her ears, she didn’t hear him walking close-by either. Had he headed downstairs to get something to drink again? It was possible…  
A flash along the horizon startled her, and she turned to the window to see the aftermath of a small flash of lightning in the distance. It was definitely dying out, though, and she hoped this hadn’t woken Amanda back up. From the lack of noise from the Flynn residence, it probably hadn’t. This really was the worst – waking up to crying so often because the walls were practically transparent was unworkable. Not to mention, as she just realized, if she and Ferb could hear the sounds coming from Amanda’s bedroom…  
Then Amanda – or anyone less oblivious to what it meant – would be able to hear the sounds coming from _their_ bedroom, too.  
She really needed to have a talk about this with Pinky’s agency one day. She was sure Phineas and Candace wouldn’t appreciate the sounds from the Fletcher bedroom reaching any part of their house, just like she had no particular desire to hear what Phineas and Candace might be doing. The next morning, she and Ferb – where _was_ he? – should probably check the house for any other rooms conducting noise. Now that was a problem Phineas wasn’t going to fix on his own…  
And then she suddenly knew exactly where Ferb Fletcher was.  
Isabella rushed down the stairs, barely glancing into the living room before heading into the small basement. The dusty atmosphere reminded her how little-used this lab really was – Phineas and Ferb almost always invented in their common laboratory at the company. This was just a little place Ferb had intended to use if he needed to build or just think about something at home. Which hadn’t happened yet in the few weeks they had lived here, but now…  
In the center of the room, tinkering away at some machinery Isabella could barely identify, stood her husband. He looked embarrassed at seeing her, and Isabella smiled wryly. “Let me guess: you’re constructing an energy shield that will keep the storm away from our houses so that Amanda can sleep peacefully?”  
He blinked, clearly surprised, and tilted his head towards the Flynn residence. Isabella nodded. “Phineas was thinking about the same thing, and I’m going to give you the same advice – no, make that an order – that Candace gave him. Go to bed. It’s too late to work on this and you do need to rest. Even you can’t go on forever.”  
He met her gaze for a few seconds, but then recognized that his wife apparently wasn’t going to yield and smiled with resignation at her, probably saving his fighting strength for an argument that really mattered - it would be rather silly to have their first marital fight over this, after all. He put down the remainder of his tools, cast a regretful look at them and preceded her back up the stairs.  
Isabella couldn’t help but chuckle as they got back to the ground floor. As Ferb looked at her for clarification, she explained. “Life with either of you was never going to be normal, was it?”  
Ferb grinned, put her arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. “No, it wasn’t” he agreed. “But seriously, Isabella… can you really say you would have wanted it to be?”  
Now there was one statement that she couldn’t disagree with.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, and yes, this story featured (references to) incest. Again, I refer to my attempted justification for the pairing given in the author's notes of "The Shrunken Sister". Anyone with comments on it may feel free to send me a message.


End file.
